I was just reading about Greek mythology...

...and specifically about Saturn, the father of Zeus, prompted by a posting at little green footballs.

One recoils at the human mind's ability to invent atrocious stories (Saturn routinely devoured his children, as depicted horrifically in a painting by Goya) and wonders if the legend was based on some actual event or was pure fiction. Modern storytellers have also dreamed up revolting nightmares for recounting, but perhaps to some degree or other they are grounded in these ancient myths. After all, how many basic storylines are there?

Inarguably, if such events occurred, they were engendered by the human mind, but something about reality, the living of life, allows for action with relatively little rational thought - as they say, truth is stranger than fiction.

While thus engaged, I had the sudden impulse to Google this question, to find out the back story upon which this myth was based. The urge died even before my fingers could twitch over the keyboard, but I was quite diverted at the automatic assumption that the answer, to any query, is out there, out there on the world wide web.

The answer is out there, of course; it's just not on Google. But the response time is notoriously variable, directly and inversely correlated to the importance of the answer to the purpose of one's existence. Then again, all things must one day be known, so I guess we shouldn't let perceived triviality get in the way of asking.

Update: Fixed the link to the Goya painting; now it just runs a Google image search.